


Late Night Love (with your host, Mark Wood)

by AlbieGeorge



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: AU, Just a bit of fun, M/M, cheesy late night radio host mark, for my lovely pal labonnetouche, grumpy caller in pudsey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-04 11:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17897792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlbieGeorge/pseuds/AlbieGeorge
Summary: A prompt from the ever lovely labonnetouche.  What would happen in Mark was a cheesy late night talk radio host, and Pudsey started calling in?Inspired bythiswonderful small moment of affection.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [labonnetouche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/labonnetouche/gifts).



“This is _Late Night Love_ , and I’m your host Mark Wood.”

Liam shook his head and rubbed his face wearily, trying to massage alertness into his burgeoning crows feet.  Despite the deep ache of fatigue his new shift pattern had programmed into his bones, Liam couldn’t stop his face creaking into a smile as the dad-joke machine of a radio host kindly navigated a teary sounding middle-aged woman away from her divorce and onto the endless possibilities of the Hartlepool dating scene.

A track kicked in.  Liam registered it as something he’d heard on the radio in the front room of his aunty Pat’s as a kid, and scrunched up his nose at the sensory memory of her sickly sweet floral perfume as she deposited a spam sandwich in front of him.

His reach for the dial of the ward’s late 90s analogue radio, a relic of the NHS next to the fax machine and a well-thumbed Catherine Cookson novel that seemed to belong to no-one in particular, was met with stern resistance from the nurses on ward 18.  Their voices softened as they moved on from chastising the bristly-faced grump of a new night shift physio and went to make up a recently-vacated bed in bay 6.

“Oh he’s so lovely, that Mark Wood.”

“Aye, he is, Janet.  Such a waste, though.”

“Oh I know.  If I were 30 years younger… and a bloke…”

“Oh I know, Janet… and did you hear what happened with that awful bloke he was…”

Liam strained to hear the gossip, but to no avail as Janet and colleague were drowned out by Chris De Burgh.  Behind his façade of being a man purely interested in live sport and pale ale, he couldn’t resist a bit of celebrity gossip.  A hefty chink in his manly man armour.  He frowned at the radio, the bubbly host returning as the song faded, an effortless segue into a segment about things not to do on a first date.  Liam opened an internet browser, casting a furtive look around the nurses’ station as he searched for “Mark Wood” and “boyfriend”.

Mark was desperately pretty, all cheeky grin, big brown eyes and what could only be described as a beauty mark on his right cheek.  _Precisely my type_ , thought Liam with a rueful smile.  Mark’s radio station headshot smiled cheekily out at Liam, interspersed with grainy images of some angry looking ratbag of a reality TV star boyfriend being caught snogging another man in a Newcastle nightclub, one hand clamped indiscreetly on his conquest’s arse cheek.

A junior doctor chose that moment to bustle in, a blur of chinos and frazzled nerves, and asked about the patient in side room 4.  Liam, trying not to look startled, closed the window and stood up suddenly, hoping his beard was covering the majority of the blush that had settled in his cheeks as he busied himself with finding the patient’s notes.

* * *

A week or possibly two went by, it was hard to tell when every ward in the place was decorated exactly the same and you barely remembered your head hitting the pillow before the alarm was clamouring again, telling you it was time to head to work as everyone else headed to the pub or home to their family.  Every night, however, Liam found himself back on ward 18 as the clock wearily ticked toward 1am.  The place felt deserted tonight; a unit consistently bustling in the more familiar light of the day shift was almost eerily still.  The nurses were tending to Mrs Parsons in bay 5.  They’d been there all shift, keeping the old dear going with soothing words and antibiotic drips and calls to the on-call registrar.  Liam found himself switching on the ancient ward radio, a now familiar voice reading out a dedication from Vera to her husband Fred who was getting over a stroke.  It was comforting, a little, the way Mark told the listeners’ stories, Liam thought.  The same old pattern of dedications and songs, a soothing accompaniment to the unsettling dance of being alone and awake in the middle of the night on a Monday.  Liam scratched his beard wearily, and concluded that the night shift had made him soft.

Shifting in his uncomfortable plastic chair, he stirred a sachet of sugar into a polystyrene cup of tea, stirring it with the wrong end of a tendon hammer, before feeling guilty and alco-gelling the equipment back to usability.  _The Wonder of You_ faded, and suddenly Mark’s voice was back.

“It’s nearly time for the mystery voice, listeners.  And this one’s been rolling over for ten days now, so we’re up to a jackpot of £250 for whoever can guess the celebrity who’s reciting the twelve days of Christmas.”

Liam shook his head.  Seriously, a Newcastle-based radio station and no-one had yet guessed that the mystery voice was Alan Shearer.  Alan fucking Shearer with his monotonous ten lords a-bloody-leaping and his handy knack of scoring goals at The Riverside to break teenaged Liam’s heart as he sat dejectedly in the stands between his dad and his uncle Kev, studying his Vans as the away end went wild.

“It’s Alan Shearer.”

The sudden interjection startled Liam into sitting bolt upright.  He turned to see a tiny elderly man at his left shoulder.  The hospital tag, loose on his skeletal wrist, said “HARPER, George; 10/04/1936”.  George looked as though he was made of old paper, matchstick legs poking out of the bottom of his hospital gown, a wizened hand gripping onto a walking stick tagged as hospital property.  Liam realised he’d never heard George speak before now.  He was just one of the long-stay dementia patients wandering the corridors of ward 18, being told to go back to his bedside and sit down out of the way.   A forgotten person, even by Liam, walking the corridors of the ward like a ghost.

“That it is.” he said, smiling at the old man, “It’s been Alan Shearer for 10 days now.”

“The listeners are half daft.” George said seriously, and Liam laughed.

“I don’t think the listeners of Late Night Love with Mark Wood are that into football.” Liam offered with a shrug.

George didn’t reply, and when Liam looked up, he was eyeing Liam’s cup of tea hopefully.

“Cuppa?” Liam asked, sliding the polystyrene cup carefully over towards the elderly figure.  George gave him a long, penetrating look.

“Aye.” he said, and sat down in the vacant seat next to Liam.

* * *

 

“And that’s it from me, Mark Wood, until tomorrow night.  Stay safe folks, and above all else, stay lovin’.”

Mark afforded himself a cheesy wink at no-one in particular as he slid up the fader for the final track of his shift.

“Same bat time, same bat channel…” he muttered to himself as he swung himself round on his wheely chair to face Louise, his long-suffering producer, and grinned.  Louise looked at Mark with fatigue and fondness in equal measure.

“Right, I’m off.” she said, grabbing her handbag and making for the door.

“Your Steve got something planned for you today then, Lou?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively as he leant back in his seat.  The effect was lost slightly as his face was ambushed by a yawn, the adrenaline of live broadcast quickly fading.

“What, a dirty fry up and a solid ten hours of sleep?” Louise said, smiling ruefully.

“Sounds ideal.” Mark said, unleashing another hippopotamus-like yawn into the air with gusto.

“See you at 10…” Louise said, “To see if anyone in the city of Newcastle can guess who Alan Shearer is…”

Mark’s smile slipped slightly as the door shut.  A few months ago, he’d have been masterminding a similar kind of domestic scene.  Even if he’d had to cajole Ben into giving him a cuddle in bed, and put up with the smell of Stella and cigarettes that still clung to him when Mark got home from a radio shift.  He frowned slightly, distance from the break up making the inevitable tumbling in of painful memories more of a dull ache.  It had all been for the best, Mark reassured himself, but that didn’t make it any easier being the woefully single host of a romance-themed radio show.  He took a long, slow breath, willing the lingering discomfort of the memory back into the pool of doubt that was a constant in his belly, telling himself now was not the time to go fishing in the murky depths for “What if I never find a good man?” or “What if I’m not good enough for one?”.  Tomorrow’s _Late Night Love with Mark Wood_ wasn’t going to write itself, now was it?  He swung back round on his wheely chair, adding an extra spin to cheer himself up, and opened up the listener e-mails, nodding sharply and forcing a smile onto his face.

* * *

Wednesday.  Hump day indeed.  Liam blinked tiredly at the bright computer screen in front of him, and tried to concentrate on the form he was filling in.  For three days now, George had come to sit beside him while he worked, to drink tea and complain about _Late Night Love_.  They’d quickly fallen into a routine.  George settling beside him silently, without invitation, and Liam getting up without a word to make him tea, milk and two.

“It’s Alan Shearer.” George said when the mystery voice came on, just as he did every day, as if it was the first time he’d heard it.  Liam turned to him.

“George, do you want to call in?” he asked.  George looked at him warily.  “I mean, the jackpot’s nearly 300 quid, you could get some clothes in, so you don’t have to wear the hospital gown, and…” Liam stopped, because George was staring at the wall.  “Come on mate, let’s give it a try.”

Not even having to look up the number, because of course it had a cheesy jingle which burrowed into your brain like a worm, Liam fished his phone out of his uniform pocket and dialled.

“And we’ve got a caller on line 1 to guess our mystery voice!  Put ‘im through, Lou!”

Mark hoped against hope that this would be the caller that would remove the need for him to play the man with the most monotonous voice on the radio every day for the rest of his life.  The caller was a man.  Maybe he liked football.  Maybe he knew who Newcastle’s most famous footballer of the last 20 years was.  Come on Liam from High Heaton…

“What’s your name, dear caller?” Mark asked.

“Ohh… err… hi, it’s Liam here…”

Mark rolled his eyes at Louise.  An awkward one.  Still, quite a sexy-voiced awkward one, Mark thought, allowing himself a half-smile, and pressed on.

“Hi Liam, you’re live on _Late Night Love_.  And where in our fine city are you calling us from tonight?”

“Oh, we’re in High Heaton.”

_We?_ Mark thought.  _Don’t burst my bubble, sexy-voiced Liam, and be calling from in bed with your hot girlfriend._

“We?”

_Whoops._

Liam panicked slightly more than he was already panicking.  _Probably not wise to reveal that you’re calling from the Freeman Hospital.  On behalf of a dementia patient who should be asleep.  On work time.  Fuck._

“Err… well, I’m calling on behalf of my… pal… George.”

“Your pal?”

“Yeah.”

“Has he lost his voice?”

“Well, “ Liam smiled, “He’s not much of a talker.  You want to talk to Mark Wood, George?”

Liam offered the phone, and George looked at it like it was on fire.

“Err… he doesn’t want to say hi.” Liam offered.

Mark chuckled, in full DJ mode now.

“So… Liam in High Heaton, and his imaginary friend George, who do you think the _Late Night Love_ Mystery Voice is?”

Liam’s eyes widened.

“Hey!  He’s not my imaginary friend!  George, tell ‘im he’s…” George was staring at the wall again. “George, mate, are you alright?”

“Gonna have to rush you here, Liam… and… George?”

George had got up and was walking unsteadily away, his hand wavering over the fire alarm button.  Liam put his phone down on the desk and was at George’s side in two long strides, gently lowering his hand and steering him back towards his bedside.

“Liam?” a distant, tinny voice asked.  “Liam?  Are you still there?” And then, more melodramatically, “Was it something I said, Liam?”

Liam shook his head at the fake histrionics as he sat George down in the chair next to his bed and brought him a tattered copy of yesterday’s Chronicle.  He collected his phone, the call long since terminated, and from a distant radio at the other end of the ward he heard a command to “above all, stay lovin’”, whatever the hell that meant, “especially you mysterious Liam, I hope you’re snuggling up next to George right now, and if you’re not, do call us again tomorrow as the mystery voice is still unsolved…”

Liam chuckled at the misunderstanding, as his pager alerted him to a patient in need of chest physio on ITU.

* * *

 

Mark bit his lower lip involuntarily as, over a post-show glass of wine in the studio with Louise, he wondered aloud if Liam from High Heaton would call back again tomorrow.

“He was proper gruff and sexy for a minute there, before he disappeared.” Louise mused.

“Aye…” Mark agreed, taking a large sip of pinot to disguise his smirk.

And Liam did call back.  Every day that week, in fact.  Mark had even made him laugh on one occasion.  A deep, throaty chuckle at a cheesy play on words.  Mark felt a surge of delight much purer that was strictly necessary at a sign that he might finally be charming his surly caller in.  He had skillfully pried out a few biographical details, like a sculptor carving away at a block of marble, and had needed every minute of his radio training not to let his voice rise two octaves when he discovered Liam was single.

However, without fail, before he got to the answer, Liam would be distracted by his silent accomplice George, or a strange-sounding alarm, or what sounded like a woman distantly calling for help.  Mark was hopelessly hooked on the mystery.  On reflection, he’d never truly been into the sensible guy, the guy in a nice jumper that was into good coffee and DIY, that you could introduce to your mam on a Saturday afternoon.  No, he had decided that the best way to get over his walking bad decision of an ex was to become infatuated with a mysterious and flaky caller on the radio.  Brilliant.

The listeners to late night love were as hooked on Liam as Mark was.  The following Tuesday, Mark’s chest was bubbling with excitement as he waited for the light for line 1 on his mixing desk to light up and announce the next installment of the saga, when Louise looked up during _Careless Whisper_ and shook her head.  Mark’s heart immediately sank, a dull plop as it disappeared whole into the doubt pool, the surface rippling as he struggled for an explanation and a way not to see this as rejection.

“He hasn’t called.” Louise said, helplessly.

Mark sighed and pressed his eyes closed, pinching the bridge of his nose almost painfully to drown out the sinking feeling of missing out.  Again.  As ever, he took a deep breath and soldiered on.  Ann from Gosforth incorrectly guessed that the mystery caller was Sean Connery.  Four of the show’s regulars texted in to find out where Liam was.

* * *

 

Liam sighed and rubbed his eyes for what seemed like the millionth time that night.  He pulled his favourite navy blue jumper over his head and stared at his reflection in the mirror as he chucked his physio uniform into his locker.  He shook his head at the exhausted face that stared back at him, and fussed with his hair for a moment, before grabbing his rucksack and heading towards the canteen.  Coffee and a bacon sandwich acquired, he headed back to ward 18, returning the sad but fond smiles from the day shift nurses who had become used to his arrival, in plain clothes, 20 minutes after handover finished.

As he walked down the corridor towards bay 12, Liam felt the unfamiliar vibration of his phone ringing.  He’d half expected it to be his mum, but the number wasn’t in his contacts.  He sighed and raised the phone to his ear, prepared to hang up at the first mention of accident compensation or a PPI claim.  Instead, the voice made him stop in his tracks, eyes wide and his bacon sandwich half way to his mouth.

“Um… is that Liam?”

Mark Wood when not on the radio sounded decidedly less sure of himself, Liam thought.

“Yeah…” he replied cautiously, which Mark seemed to take as a cue to start babbling.

“Oh, er… hi Liam.  It’s Mark here.  Err, you know, Mark Wood… off the radio?”  He barely paused for breath.  “Look mate, I know this is weird, and probably very unethical, in fact I might lose my job over this… but… I… you just _stopped calling_ , and the listeners… no… _I_ wanted to know you were alright.  You and George.  We all miss you both a bit.  Well, mostly you to be fair, cos George is more of the silent partner in the relationship isn’t he… the straight man in the double act… the custard to your rhubarb… or whatever”

Liam felt his face blooming into an almighty blush.  Throughout the chaos of the last few days, he’d felt little stabs of guilt at the thought of suddenly stopping his calls to Mark Wood on the radio.  But, in the circumstances, it hurt too much.  Liam’s heart did a funny little flop in his chest that Mark had cared enough to check on him.  He frowned at the feeling, a small reprimand for his softness.

“Hi Mark,” he started.  It came out quieter than he’d anticipated, gentler. “Thanks for calling, pal.  Sorry we stopped ringing in.  It’s just… George.  He’s...” Liam swallowed and pressed on. “George isn’t doing so well.”

“He’s not?” Mark asked, immediately concerned.

“No.” Liam replied.  In the end, coming clean came very easily.  Why was Mark so easy to talk to?  Must be his talk radio skills.  Liam opened his mouth and suddenly the truth came tumbling out.  “Mark, George is my patient.  At the Freeman.  I work there.  We called in from the night shift, cos George has dementia and he doesn’t sleep much, and my shifts are always pretty quiet at 1am, and… well now he’s got pneumonia, and he doesn’t have a family, so I’ve been spending a lot of time with him.  So we haven’t been able to call in.”  Liam took a bite of his bacon sandwich, sating a sudden pang of hunger after the effort of unburdening himself of the crime of frivolity on NHS time.

“Oh.” Mark said, and Liam couldn’t read all of the notes in his voice.

When there was a quiet knock at George’s side room door half an hour later, Liam figured it was a nurse, coming to quiet a beeping infusion pump or deliver a small pot of tablets which Liam would agree to painstakingly feed to George, one by one.  George slept a lot, but when he was awake he spent a lot of time looking worried and small, the blueness of his veins visible through his skin.  The nurses said that having Liam around soothed him, so Liam stayed for as long as he could before he became too sleepy to drive home.

“I don’t know why people always bring grapes when someone’s in hospital,” a familiar voice started nervously, a voice Liam could have sworn was talking through a mouthful of food, “They’re not what I’d go for when I’m ill…”

There was an awkward pause as Liam turned to greet _Late Night Love_ ’s Mark Wood, who was popping a grape into his mouth to disguise a nervous smile.

“I’m more of a Dairy Milk man in a difficult situation...” Mark babbled.

Liam raised an eyebrow.   _Go with it_ , a voice deep inside commanded him.

“There’s a vending machine down the corridor, pal.” He deadpanned, and Mark was horrorstruck for a moment, before Liam grinned and said “I’ll have a Double Decker.”

* * *

 

It would have been odd, how they met, if either of them had decided they wanted to think about it.  But it turned out neither of them did, so they feel into an odd but comfortable rhythm in the days that followed.  Mark would show up after his show, bearing vending machine delights and endless ridiculous radio show anecdotes.  Even in his exhausted ill-humour, Liam would smile at the sight of him, slowly thawed from his gloom by Mark’s endless energy.  So much so, that about a week in, when Mark made his entrance, bringing with him a new blanket for George’s bed, navy and white stripes draped around his shoulders like some kind of giant insane scarf, Liam stood and on some kind of exhausted autopilot wrapped his arms around him, pressing a tiny kiss to his hairline as Mark rode out a beat of surprise and then wrapped his arms around Liam’s waist.  Liam looked up furtively to see if anyone was around, but decided he didn’t care as he felt Mark press his face into his neck.

When they broke the embrace, both slightly pink cheeked and unsure of their footing, a pair of mistrustful pale blue eyes was peering at them.

“It’s Alan Shearer.” George said.


	2. A mini epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some time later. I couldn't resist just writing a little bit more of these two.

Liam squinted, an impending sneeze scrunching up his features.  The fickle sneeze retreated unsatisfyingly, and Liam allowed himself to release a little _ugh_ into the air.

“Still got that man flu, have you, pet?”

Liam blinked at Jenny, his favourite of the kind-eyed middle-aged night nurses on ward 18, as he tried to push away the discomfort of the aborted sneeze.

“Yeah.” he replied, the syllable reverberating uncomfortably through his blocked sinuses.  He felt in his uniform pocket for his tissues, smiling briefly at the memory of Mark tucking them into his backpack as he left that evening, and reaching up to mess up his hair.  It was only as he reached for the little plastic package, wracked by a sneezing fit on the Metro, that he had realised they were gaudily printed with Disney princesses.  Liam shook his head and blew his nose on Elsa.

The song on the radio ended, and Mark’s voice came to greet Liam’s memory of him.  He took a call from Jean, a feisty sounding divorcee whose voice sung with stories of her new love Martin.

“It’s great to be in love, isn’t it Mark?” she asked, buoyed by a heart full of Martin and belly full of Pizza Express and pink wine.

There was a pause.

“Aye.” said Mark, sincerely. “Aye, it is.”

Liam's cheeks burned, and not with fever as he felt a warm, familiar ache spread through his chest.  He faked a coughing fit to hide his smile.


End file.
